Best use of Scather & Fragarach

If you were going to build a party around these two weapons, what would be the best possible use for them? Fragarach & Scather are both auto-hit Bastard Swords with Co8 patch (IIRC), so normal attack penalties are out the door. Two options come to my mind...

1. Fighter Dual Wielding the swords (rather than Ranger since Two-Weapon Fighting feat is unnecessary, while Greater Weapon Focus and other Fighter bonus feats are actual benefits)

2. Two Rogues using them with Sneak Attacks

 

1. Results in a game-breaking bug on AoO. As cool as it may look/sound, it doesn't work.

Rogues could be OK, but as multiple people have proven, rogues using ranged weapons tend to be more deadly.

Finally, be aware that if you play the game as intended, it will not allow you to own both at the same time. The only way to get them simultaneously is either by cheating (console) or exploiting some game mechanics.

 

Rain
My Parade

Ah, well. Was hoping that glitch was just isolated to certain areas.

 

The bug with ONE sword only occurs in Fire Node.

The bug with TWO swords is consistent. Kind of nice actually, an unplanned protection against exploits

 

Fair enough. Good point.

 

The problem with Scather is the unlimited aoo's for CG isn't implemented. The game has nothing to do with fire. Fruella got swallowed by the behemeth frog and on the 2nd aoo the game locks. It's a timing issue, maybe in temple.dll. I'm guessing there's no interval between attacks and the game does'nt see the 2nd attack. Just guessing.

 

It does seem to go really fast.


I wonder what would happen if you consoled in Scather and attacked the prince with it?

 

Huh? Got a link to any sort of proof to that effect? I am very confidant that that is incorrect, and that dual wielding strength/melee based rogues are better damage dealers.

 

Don't have a link anywhere, but I remember someone claiming ridiculous damage dealt by bow-wielding rogues. I never got that myself, but my ranged rogue seemed to be more effective than the usual dual-wield build I use. Sneak attacks withing 30-foot radius plus extra damage from the composite bows...

 

Think i'll try my rogue with EXP/TWF and see how it goes. Craftup another bastard sword to go with Scather and start swinging.

 

Extra attacks with twf = more sneak attack, which at later levels, dominates the damage dealt by rogues. Flanking = better to hit with those attacks and easier to acheive than depending on invis to get your sneak with the bow. And strength/melee based gets both to hit and damage from the single stat as opposed to composite requires one stat for to hit and the other for the damage bonus (as well as capping it)

 

^ It does seem logically true, and I've always been rolling TWF rogues. But I just finished a game with a ranged rogue, and she seemed more effective. Plus, another advantage of a ranged rogue is not being smashed all the time by enemy fighters.

As for the stats, you still need reasonably high DEX for a TWF build - a) because ITWF requires 17, and b) because rogues simply don't have the HP to survive on the front lines without a high DEX stat.

Finally, extra TWF attacks don't necessarily mean more sneak attack. There's few enemies that can withstand more than 3-4 sneak attacks from a well-built rogue (regardless TWF of bow), and it's very difficult to position everyone in such a way and predict enemy movement that the TWF rogue could deal damage to multiple opponents every turn. The bow rogue, on the other hand, would use full attack every turn without having to move, resulting in more overall damage.

Invis. dependence isn't a big deal IMO - for me it's a standard prebuff for any rogue build.

 

I can cede the possibility that for ToEE, ranged might end up more effective. Most of my experience lies in the PnP versions.

I'm not sure about for the feat, but I eventually achieve my dex and AC goals with items.... and I can't say my rogue ever dropped.

I guess I think requiring improved invis to be effective in a fight is a really big deal. You need to be willing to only have an effective rogue for like 2 fights before resting...

The other question would be, when are we looking at the efficiency here? If you are talking 3-4 successful sneak attacks, that probably means a minimum of 5 attempts. Which, if we are talking about one round, puts you at 17th level (if I recall correctly) + TWF + haste... or slightly less including the ITWF iirc.

And then at that level (if this were PnP) you should be expecting a lot of opponents with some way to work around invis....

... but this isn't PnP, so I will settle with a question of what level do we want to frame this analysis in?

 

I haven't tried a pure 2 weapon rogue build vs. an archer rogue build, but I have tried replacing my normal ranger/rogue 2 weapon build with a ranger/rogue archer build, and was actually rather pleased. It takes a little longer to get going, because you need point blank shot and precise shot to start seeing the difference. At low levels, if you swarm a single opponent (moathouse frog, or random encounters), it can be hard to get a full party involved in melee; a ranger/rogue archer doesn't have to close to deal consistent damage.
... later on, that also means the poor low-hp ranger/rogue doesn't get eaten (as much) by random troll encounters... although that long reach trolls have can sometimes surprise one.

 

My rogue always tumbles through the reach, and my fighter (lawnmower) and cleric tend to match or exceed the reach, so I rarely notice...